Final quote of 2000!!!!!

Times arrow points fast-forward to the new Millenium. [?!!?!?!? And... ?!?!??!?! It's a bit like saying "Time points to it raining in 3:04"!!!!! It either does or it doesn't!!!!!!! Hardly wot, I'd call a piece of "wisdom"!!!!!!!!! I hope next years quotes are better than this!!!!!!!!!!]

Happy New Year, everyone!!!!!!!!

Predictions are a load of crap!!!!!!!!!

Well, wot wiv 2001 just 2 days away, all the usual boring gits are crawling out of the woodwork using the existance of a certain Stanley Kubrik movie to talk about the nature of science fiction, technology, and predictions about the future!!!!!!! It's about as tiresome as the bit between Nov 1983 and Feb 1984 when all the talking heads were yapping on about Orwell!!!!!!! (And I'm not referring to the talking duck here!!!!!!!! I am in fact alluding to the novelist who wrote "Nineteen Eighty Four"!!!!!!!! Tho why he chose to use the name of a talking green ventriloquist's duck when his real name was Eric is anyone's guess!!!!!!!!! Mind you, having read that flipping book, he does appear to be writing as tho something's stuck up his "ass"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And by "a talking green ventriloquist's duck" I am of course referring to a talking green duck as operated by a ventriloquist!!!!!!!! As opposed to a talking duck operated by a ventriloquist in the advanced stages of gangrene!!!!!!!!!!)

Ahem anyway!!!!!!!! Here's some slightly more interesting article about crap predictions!!!!!!!!! According to this one, there's some old book from ye olde days, written from the point of view of some bloke in 2027, that has some hilariously bad predictions about Scotland dissolving into sectarian anarchy kind of round abouts now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It includes gems such as: "Troops and armoured cars had twice been brought from England to re-establish military law in Lanarkshire"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And even:

You must recall that no newspaper of any importance has been published in the country for 20 years. There is no reason why one should be. There are excellent aeroplane services from London, Manchester, and Dublin.

Well there you go!!!!!!!! If you have any trouble getting a newspaper, just jump on a plane to Dublin!!!!!!!!!!

Time for a weblog cull!!!!!!!

Cripes!!!!! Even the New York Times is plugging this webby loggy business!!!!!!! Wot with all this hype starting to do a "bubble" and stuff, it looks like it won't be too long before there's a "dotcom" style weblog crash!!!!!!!!!!

So it's survival of the fittest in Blogland!!!!!!! And to test the fitness of your weblog, why not try the "Kill Your Weblog" Test, which rates your weblogs chances of survival in the event of major 'log burn!!!!! (Doh!!!!!!!!!)

According to the test, which I answered completely at random and blindfolded, (Which of course perfectly mirrors the wild and wacky off-tha-wall style of our, erm, wild and wacky off-tha-wall w3zine!!!!!!) and got the following results!!!!!!!!!!

Your weblog rating is 61%
What a nice weblog you have! I imagine if you hang around the scene long enough someone might actually notice.

PS Please do not take screenshots of this dialog box.

Well, as you can see, I'm a man of my word!!!!!!!!

Snip Snip... It's The Simpsons!!!!!!!!

Hey!!!! I bet you never knew showings of The Simpsons are cut to ribbons in the UK!!!!!!!! Well, the bloke wot runs this next spiffy w3site does!!!!!!!!! Yes, apparently the TV "high heid yins" in the UK have, as usual, decided that cartoons, like Sci-Fi, is a load of kids stuff, and so are more than a little put out to discover that shows like The Simpsons are regarded as adult shows in the US!!!!! And as a result the Beeb and Blob (!!!!) tend to get their editing scissors out on occasion!!!!!! Which is a jolly big shame, as it means UK audiences have yet to experience the pleasure of Bart calling someone a "bastard"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Until they get the official (and uncut) Simpsons videos for their kids that is!!!!!!!!!

Why is there a national outcry about this counterproductive censorious outrage?!?!??!?!?! Well, you can make a start by going to the very wonderful "Snipsons" webby sitey!!!!!!!!!!!

Tsar/Czar Jinks!!!!!!!! (Doh!!!!!!!!)

Honestly!!!!!!!! Wot a bunch of wimps we are over here!!!!!!!!! A little bit of freak snow on tha roads and everyone goes crazy!!!!!! Now someone's calling for the appointment of yet another flipping czar/csar/tsar/tzar/xsar/xzar/zzar/zsar/szar/etc!!!!!!!! This time, it's to be a "roads czar"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently, someone needs to tell everyone that they should be vigilant towards the possiblility of snow and icy roads during winter!!!!!!!!! Funny how such situations seem to handled each year by folks in the Nordic regions!!!!!! Where winter temperatures regularly reach what the Glasgow Herald describes as:

between -10[[ordmasculine]]C and -14[[ordmasculine]]C

Anyway, how many "czars" would that be that we've got now!??!?!??! And what do they all do?!?!?! Why are they called "czars" anyway?!?!??! Is because they get a lot of money and nobody really knows what they actually do to merit their position?!?!??!?!?!?

Episode II: "Shambles"!!!!!!!!!

Well, here's a w3site we haven't linked to for a long time- Ain't It Cool News!!!!!!!!! Apparently, there's a bit of "discussion" about whether the much vaunted Star Wars Episode II is getting rewritten or not!!!!!!!!!

Mind you, as usual with AICN, we always have to say... Remember the "ZX Shrink Chamber" story....!!!!!!!!

"Nuclear Winter"... In Oregon!!!!!!!

Looks like much predicted floods didn't happen to Glasgow!!!!!!! But something else did!!!!!!!!! And the previous predictions weren't too good in that area either!!!!!!!!

Yes, that right!!!!!!! Bazillions of inches of snow have blanketed us over the past couple of days!!!!!!!!!!!!! As a result, I have been partaking of a significant number of hot toddies in the interim period, I can tell you!!!!!!!

But even our inclement weather pales into insignifcance compared to a nuclear winter!!!!!!!!!! But apparently that's what has happened to some place in the US called Oregon!!!!!!!! And they didn't even "nuke" it either!!!!!!!!!!! Tho I have heard from certain US correspondants that it needn't neccessarily be a bad thing.

Thursday's "State The Flipping Obvious" quote!!!!!!!

Wisdom is better than rubles. [Well, of course it is!!!!! The value of Russian currency compared to the pound is absolutely atrocious at the moment!!!!!!! Where have you you been!??!?!??! On the Moon or something?!??!?!?!??!

Hello again!!!!!

Yes!!!!! I've managed to sober up from my drunken festive haze long enough to say hello to all you nice people again for wot looks like the final Senior Citizen missive of 2000!!!!! And I'll be glad to see the back of it!!!!!!! (The year 2000 of course, not SC!!!!! Not that SC's actually going of course!!!!! Erm, where was I?!?!?!)

Anyway, good riddance to Y2K!!!!!! Not least because it finally means we'll get a rest from all the usual bores who go "Oh, the millenium really starts in 2001!!!!!!!!! It didn't really start in 2000!!!!!!!!"!!!!!!!! Look, you twerps!!!!!!! It probably isn't starting in 2001 either, because we don't know for sure exactly when "Year 1" actually began!!!!!!! In fact, the best guesses are that the new millenium actually started in the mid-90s!!!!!!! So marking the millenium is just a matter of marking an important date and having a jolly big party to celebrate!!!!!!!! So I picked 2000!!!!!!!!

Mind you, I'm having second thoughts now!!!!!!!! Maybe 2001 was a better date after all!!!!!! Tell you wot, I think I'll have a jolly big party to celebrate the new millenium now!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday's "Talking Out Of One's Ringpiece" quote!!!!

In a dream you are never eighty. [Well, I can tell you young man, that in my dreams, I am always at least eighty!!!!!!! Mind you, that might be because I'm exceptionally advanced in my years!!!!!!!!!!!]

Friday's Pro-Prostitution Slogan!!!!!!!

Love is like any other luxury: you can no right to it unless you can afford it. [Sounds like a line straight out of Cynthia Payne's manifesto!!!!!!!!!!]

Rather problematic holiday weekend quotees!!!!

Progress is a neccessary part of nature. [Wot about that decomposing hedgehog I saw the other day!??!?!? Not exactly "progress" on the part of the hedgehog, is it?!??!?!?]

Rather silly Boxing Day Bon Mot!!!!

Everyone lives by selling something. [Wot about librarians, then?!?!??!?! Get out of that one, smartypants!!!!!!!]

Potentially Cultish Xmas Slogan!!!!!

Comments are free, but facts are sacred. [Look, my good man!!!!! I know Westlife are crap, but I do not neccessarily desire to have this fact enshrined in religious doctrine for the purpose of regular worship!!!!!!!!!!!]

Welcome back!!!!!!

Yay!!!!!! We're back online after that problem Blogspot had with their backbone!!!!!!!!!!!! And just in time for Chhristmas!!!! I've stilll been posting the odd story tho- not as much as I expected, because I was rather busy!!!!!!!! Especially with the run up to the festive season!!!!!!! (Mind you, the fact that I can run up to the festive season at all is a testiment to my strength of fitness at this late stage in life!!!!!!!)

Not that everyone sees this!!!!!! When I was going homewards on the vehicular omnibus, laden with Xmas fayre, what should assault my eyeballs but a disgraceful piece of graffitied slander against the older generation!!!!!! Yes!!!!! Someone had scrawled on the bus wall:

All pensioners should stay at home and leave the normal people in peace

Well, naturally, I wasn't going to take this insult lying down!!!!!! Not that I was lying down of course!!!!!! I was in fact sitting on a seat!!!!! Well, anyway, I wasn't going to take it sitting down either!!!!!! It was time to send a message to the young ruffians (or "neds" as they call them up my end!!!!) who were responsible for this outrage!!!!!!!! So, I quickly scuttled up to the offending scribe with my trusty bingo marker in hand, crossed out the first six letters of "pensioners", and changed the final "r" of that word to "d"!!!!! At which point, I got a standing ovation from the rest of the bus!!!!!! Then the bus driver noticed me taking a bow to the grateful masses, stopped the bus, and took a look at my handiwork!!!!! Then he shaked my hand, got back in the cab, and continued driving!!!!!!!

So take that, you young whippersnappers!!!!!!

Friday's complete and utter contradiction of a quote!!!!!!

Three o' clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. [So what do you suggest one does at three o' clock then?!??!?!?! Something one doesn't want to do?!??!?! Like listen to Westlife or something?!??!?!?!]

Bang!!! Boom!!!! It's the E-books!!!!!

According to this story, E-books are "Set to Explode"!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which sounds jolly dangerous if you ask me!!!!!! I mean, the advantages of the electronic book medium don't exactly in my mind outweigh the obvious disadvantages of a highly combustible piece of experimental technology!!!!!! And even if it were used for practical uses, such as propellant fuel, then it negates the need for writers!!!!!!!! I mean, if it's going to blow up anyway, one could write any old crap!!!!!!!!

Mind you, having read some recent best-sellers, such a situation might not be too far from present day reality!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Simon Carr: The Man With Two Brains!!!!!!!!!

Wow!!!!! Check this out, it's the Parliamentary Review of the Year by Simon Carr!!!!!

By removing the magic, the passion, the peaks and the troughs, Tony Blair has made the contest that is Prime Minister's Question Time his own, his very own.

But someone inside the same paper doesn't agree with that!!!!!!!

The suggestion on the front of The Independent Review today that prime minister's questions has ceased to make a vital contribution to the parliamentary week should be ignored. The writer has no idea what he's talking about. I denounce him. Fire him forthwith.

Who is this dissenter?!?!??! Why, it's ermm, Simon Carr again!!!!!!!

Make your mind up, Simes!!!!!!

News At Ten, with your newsreader.... The Queen!!!!!!!

Welll, I never!!!!! Some Aussie boffins have analysed the Queen's voice from her annual Chrimbo Speech-os, and found that her voice has evolved over time to sound like that of a newsreader!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't wait for her next speech!!!!!! What's the bets she'll start the summing up by saying: "And finally...."!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then talking about some elephant on a skateboard or something!!!!!!!!! Actually, maybe that last bit is a little unlikely, to be honest!!!!!!!!

If you've got a skeleton in the closet... Don't tell it to John MacLeod!!!!!

U-no, that funny little man from the Isles wot writes for the Glasgow Herald, John MacLeod, used to be really controversial!!!!! Used to write multiple firebrand fulminations regarding how homosexuals deserved to burned at the stake, quickly followed by the Roman Catholics, etc., ... !!!!!! But then for strange some reason, he suddenly quietened down!!!!!!!! Now he's managed to excite some controversy again!!!! In his latest column (ooh-err!!!!), he writes screeds about how society is supposed to be failing children or suchlike!!!!! So wot, you may think, but then he gives a couple of examples from his homeplace, the Isle of Harris!!!! Incuding this one:

There's a little boy I call Twenty Questions, for whenever I meet him - he's allowed to wander the village at all hours, while mum props up a bar - he asks this and that and the next thing.

Unfortunately for him, the mother of said child was most annoyed and wrote a big letter into the Herald slagging him off!!!!! And they published it!!!!!!!!

Does Mr Macleod realise just how damaging his malicious statements can be to a person? When I first moved to this island just over two years ago I had my first experience of how accusations fly round here. This culminated in the police and social work department arriving at my then place of work because of an anonymous phone call to the police accusing me of something very similar to what Mr MacLeod has.

Bet the islanders are really pleased with McLeod for helping to generate this really spiffy Xmas advert for the Isle of Harris, eh!!!!!!!

Mind you, you'd think that as a journalist ol' Johnny boy would be a bit more wary of the problems that can be caused by spreading around stories about people from behind their back... After all, there was this journalist- let's call him Funny Little Man From The Isles Wot Writes For The Glasgow Herald- who used to write multiple firebrand fulminations regarding how homosexuals deserved to burned at the stake, quickly followed by the Roman Catholics, etc., ... !!!!!! And then he had to stop when he realised that if he continued in such a vein, there would be a lot of people who be quite happy to point out that he had just been outed in a gay magazine!!!!!!!

Utterly mystifying Thursday quote!!!!!

Digestion is the great secret of life. [Hmmm.... I think somehow your average biologist would disagree with you there!!!!!!!!!]

Archer thrown out of Court!!!!

Lord of bestselling books (Well, OK then- he writes books, and he just happens to be an enobled gentleman then!!!!!) Jeffrey Archer as we mentioned earlier is still fighting a court case.... But what you might not know is that he's been thrown out of court!!!!!! And it's all his fault!!!!!!!!! But in this case, it's all right, he's not going to jail- because it's all an act!!!!!!!!! Yes, Archer's self-penned play The Accused, in which he plays the titular role (Oooh-err, misuss!!!) in a courtroom drama, (Which is presumably in no way like the courtroom drama he's about to take part in for real!!!!!!!! Or he would get "done" by the "Rozzers"!!!!!!!!!) is shutting down because of poor audience numbers!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Presumably, Archer went to "appeal" the "verdict", but his "objection" was "overruled"!!!!!!!!!!!

A Brown Christmas!!!!!!!

Well, the chance of us folks in Glasgow, Scotland getting a White Christmas are about one in thirty squillion!!!!!!!!! (!!!!!) But we might be getting a slightly late Brown Christmas- Clyde Brown, that is!!!!!!!!!! No, we're not talking about the latest "trendy" Radio Scotland presenter!!!!!!! We're in fact talking about about a large body of water which runs through a city!!!!!!!!!! It turns out that the River Clyde, which runs through the centre of Glasgow (And is a little mucky- in much the same way as the continent of Antartica is a little "brisk"!!!!!!) is in danger of bursting it's banks next Thursday, and causing city centre flooding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Better get my Christmas shopping done quickly, then!!!!!!!!!

I dunno why I'm typing this!!!!!!!

Honestly!!!!!!! Trust BlogSpot to go temporarilary bye-byes, just I was getting a little busy!!!!!!! Now you won't see my apology for that lack of material on this week due to my current state of busiment!!!!!! In fact, I could type any old crap, and you wouldn't know!!!!!! Look!!!!!!! The aliens have landed!!!!!!!!!! George W Bush has broken down!!!!! See wot I mean?!?!?!??!?! No one's paying attention!!!!!!!!!! Bah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday's slightly unrealistic quote!!!!!!

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education. [Erm, well, I would think that teaching them to talk and listen would be a bit of priority first!!!!!!!! I mean, I haven't exactly seen any reliable proof concerning parental teaching of honesty by means of extra sensory perception, have you?!?!?!?!?]

Tuesdays "Let's contradict Monday!!!!!!" quote!!!!!!

One of the greatest pleasures in life is conversation. [Unless it's conversation with some buffon who can't make up their mind from day to day, that is!!!!!!!]

Monday's rather Neitzschian quote!!!!

The greatest enjoyment in life comes from living dangerously. [Nice one!!!!! I think I'll up sticks and move to the West Bank now!!!!!!]

Silly photo caption time!!!!!!!

Check out this piccy of Tory leader William Hague, fresh from blaming a police report on racism for rising crime!!!!!!

William Hague:	"I blame this box I'm standing on for making me look like a complete idiot!!!!!!!!! It's a part of the trendy liberal elite, who are also no doubt responsible for our atrocious opinion poll ratings!!!!!!!"
Anne Widdlecome:	"Cor!!!!! Wot a leader!!!!!!!"

Dadrock mags to reign supreme?!?!?!

Just hours before hearing the news about MM, I read an interesting article on UK teletext (p453, CH4) about the declining circulation of music publications after the closure of Select... Including a spot-on prediction that Melody Maker in particular, with sales down to around 32,000, was being talked of in the industry as the next for the chop! Strangely enough, MM's bosses IPC would not comment for the article...

The piece (written by Iain Gittins, a former MM dude himself) tried to work out what has gone "wrong" with the music press... Well, perhaps the article itself went some way to illustrating how some journos in the titles most affected have lost the plot a little!!! Throughout the article, the assumption was made that the "Dadrock" contigent (ie Q, Mojo, Uncut) are the main beneficiaries of the circulation wars because they focus on past glories!!! "No new acts?!? Quick, grandpa, stick John Lennon on tha cover again!!!!"

But a look at the circulation figures (published at the end of the article) told a different story... Top seller is (appropriately enough) TOTP by a large margin, (300,000+ sales) followed by Smash Hits, (200,000+) and then a fair bit behind that is our first dadrock mag, Q!!!! (around 160,000)

Next it's a couple of the dance stalwarts Mixmag, (~98,000) closely followed by Ministry, (~96,000) with our next old folks mag Mojo again trailing by a significant margin.... And where's Uncut? Well, it's selling just above the fateful 50,000+ level that Select were hovering around when they were chopped, with the supposedly ailing NME beating them with weekly sales of around 75,000!!!!

The message I get from all this is that dadrock mags are routinely being spanked in the sales games by the pop glossies, and are struggling to keep up with the popularity of mainstream danceclub monthlies!

(Sorry, no link to the article- rather annoyingly, the Teletext UK site appears to have dropped the Planet Sound section in their recent revamp!!!!!! Harmuph!!!!!!!!

MMNME!!!!!!!!!

Wow!!!!! That was flippin' quick!!!!!!!! Merely hours after I pointed out on a message board the appearance of a story hinting that the days of ancient music weekly Melody Maker might be numbered, along comes a news item on NME's site saying MM is getting "merged" with the NME!!!!! The next issue is the final one!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, it's brought out all the usual "end of an era" type stories from the usual suspects, most of whom basically rewrite the flippin NME story!!!! (And some even rip off the Billy Corgan cover piccy used on the NME site!!!!!!!)

Well, coming from someone who's read it since 1992 (When they had Suede on the front cover and still subtitled themselves "Tomorrow's Music Today"!!!!!) I have to say: I'm not at all surprised that MM's been "merged" to death!!!!!! The bloody things being going downhill for the past couple of years, and really started to nosedive toward Destination Gutterland this year, culminating in the laughable "Up Your Delors!!!" style "campaign" against UK Garage and for "our" type of music to be heard in the charts!!!!!! Tho they were a little quiet on what exactly "our" type of music was, and why it had any more right to be in the charts than S Club 7, especially considering how much of it was boring twaddle like Coldplay!!!!!!!!!!!! I must admit when I saw their cover "UK Garage My Arse", and then listened to the enclosed free CD, that I had to agree with the headline- compared to the average UK Garage track, MM's compil definately did sound like a lot of arse!!!!!!!!!! But apparently, it was still alright to like pop in an "ironic" way!!!!!! So exactly why did they pick on UK Garage and Craig David in particular?!?!?!? I mean, surely there are more deserving targets like certain boy-bands (eg Westlife), but no, MM seemed to randomly pick on the black dude!!!!!! No wonder the sales had plummeted by around 21% in the past couple of months!!!!!!!

Today's really really obvious quote!!!!!!!!

Time devours everything. [Next week- "Bears: they shit in the woods!!!!!!"]

Cache could cost you cash- thanks to hackers!!!!!!

This is a bizzare new hacking trick!!!! Apparently one can use a web server to time the speed that a browser requests stuff in order to test if something is in the cache!!!!!!! This can be accessed by remote sites and can therefore be used as a kind of "unofficial" cookie!!!!!!!!!! Which can no doubt be used to steal your credit card details, etc., etc., ....

Pah!!!!! Grown up w3surfers shouldn't really be using their cache anyway!!!!!!!!! I certainly don't!!!!!! But then again, I've got no choice- my browser's really old!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In-service days: rubbish!!!!!

Apparently, according to this article a lot of training and on-line education is complete crap!!!!!!! This is because:

• People do courses to avoid work!!!!!
  
• Companies just do it to look nice!!!!!
  
• Some training just tells you what to do, but doesn't do anything else, so when you come against something not in the textbook, you're up a well known creek minus rowing equipment!!!!!!
  
• People treat it like a re-enactment of Gladiator!!!!!!!!!
  

This article mentions something called "unlearning" as well, which would be jolly useful, because if applied correctly, it could enable me to forget that dreadful S Club 7 gramphone I heard the other day on tha tellybox!!!!!!!!!!

Now, that's what I call overclocking!!!!!!!!

Hmmmm... I think someone is taking overclocking their PC hardware to extremes when they start using water tubs, hoses and hydraulic pumps in order to cool their compute!!!!!!!!!

Mind you, it could be handy!!!!! His compute will already have an inbuilt fire extinguisher in case he really overclocks it, and as a result sets his house on fire!!!!!!!!

FUD with Fraunhofer- thanks to an Ogg!!!!!!

First the music industry got afraid of something called MP3, then the MP3 folks got afraid of something called... Ogg Vorbis!!!!!!!! This is new open source sound format which hopes to have similar compression and sound quality to MP3!!!!!!!!!!

But, hold your seats!!!!!! According to this story, the folks who own a lot of patents on the MP3 format are a bit miffed about it, and threaten to sue the rear entrances off the Vorbis crowd!!!!!!!!

"We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson intellectual property," Linde said. "We think it is likely they are infringing."

The funny thing is that as Ogg Vorbis was designed precisley to avoid this prob!!!! And since it's open source, they could just check the source code to find out if they're infringing any patents!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder one of the team behind Ogg is pretty calm about the whole thing!!!!!!

Between the lines, it says, "we're worried/scared, they're on our radar, and we need to make some noise. Words are cheaper than lawyers."

I wonder if the Thompson/Fraunhofer peeps are a bit more "man" enough to try throwing their patents around against a rather bigger grouping of people!!!!!! Phillips, Cisco, Sun, Apple and Cisco have been in talks about agreeing a common streaming format early next year, with AOL (the parent company of Winamp's HQ!!!!) interested!!!!!!!! And it's not MP3-based either!!!!!!!! It's MPEG-4, which is an open standard!!!!!!!! And we mentioned it in one of our more ancient issues as well!!!!!!!!

Clinton: "sausage"!!!!!!

Check out this strangely appropriate comment about the outgoing Prez El De La US!!!!!!!!!

The quote of the day yesterday came from Peter Mandelson, the Northern Ireland secretary, who said of Bill Clinton: "He is, I can assure you, more sausage than sizzle."

Oh err missus!!!!!! Oh crickey vicar!!!!! Jings, Crivvens, Help Ma Boab!!!!! etc. I thought we'd already heard enough about the Presidential Sausage!!!!!!!!

Wednesday's slightly pointless quote!!!!!!

Chance only favours a prepared mind. [... Which, erm, suggests that it's not really chance, then!!!!!!!]

Women in the altogether- caused by a computer virus?!?!?!?

Well, I guess you're probably getting over the shock of that pasty young woman showing off her spare tire in that "Opium" poster advert!!!!! But if that image appeared in a Japanese website, the authorities might have had a slightly different reaction to it!!!!!!!!

Police are investigating how an image of a nude woman made its way on to the website of Japan's top security organization.

"At this point, nothing has been concluded, only that it was not caused by a virus," said a spokesman at the National Police Agency.

Wot!??!?! You had to "conclude" that it wasn't a virus?!?!?!?! Under exactly circumstances could a computer virus cause a website to suddenly display a member of fairer gender sans apparel!?!??!?!??!

One would have thought that if such a virus existed, those "adult" w3sites would be using them- for "stealth" advertising purposes!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next Jeffrey Archer: Saddam Hussein!!!!!!!!

Well, there's a bit of legal business going on at the mo regarding whether book-writing bod Jeffrey Archer told a few fibs or not!!!!!!!!!!!! But if he were ever to be found guilty and sent away, don't worry!!!!!!!!! One of the characters in his books can step forward and carry on writing!!!!!!!!

Yes, Saddam Hussein, who was featured in one of Archers fictional novels recently in a somewhat fictional capacity, and whom we haven't mentioned for a bit, is rumoured to be behind an anonymously written fictional story, which is selling rather well in his native Iraq!!!!!!!!!

Wot next?!??!?! "General Pinochet's 101 Favourite Limericks"?!?!??!?!?!

Clinton- the next pontiff!??!?!?!?

Crikey O'Reilly!!!!!! I guess the Republic of Ireland has changed a little recently regarding the power of the Catholic Church in it's internal affairs!!!!!!!!! Check out this quote regarding Bill Clinton's current visit to the country:

As one resident of Dundalk noted yesterday: "He is bigger than the Pope."

!!!!!!!! Well, if you ask me, The Beatles were a bunch of idiots for making their "bigger than Jesus" type comments in the US in 1965!!!!!! They should have jumped into a TARDIS, went to Dublin in 2000, and said it there instead!!!!!!!!!

So much for being the best band in the world!!!!!!!!!!

"This is not San Diego, sonny boy!!!!!!!!!!"

Makes you wonder if peeps are taking a huge risk in sending in stuffs to the Glasgow Herald Letters page, when the folks at the ancient paper print the letterrs under such bizzare headlines as "Glasgow is not like San Diego"!!!!!!!!!!!

Next they'll be telling us that Kirkintilloch bears little resemblence to the Rock of Gilbratar!!!!!!!!!!!

Bill Gates: Assassinated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cripes!!!!!!!!!! I dunno how I missed this one!!!!!! Apparently the former Mr Microsoft has bit the bullet- literally!!!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently it happened on December 2, 1999 in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles!!!!!!!! You would have thought the newspapers would be full of it or something!!!!!!! Or maybe they've done a "Paul McCartney" style cover-up with a look-a-like in place of the dead person!!!!! (Expect that of course that it didn't really happen with Paul McCartney!!!!! ... Or did it?!??!?!?!?! Who knows!??!?!?!?! Probably Paul McCartney!!!!!! Unless he's dead, obviously!!!!!!! OK, OK, I'll get on with it!!!!!!!!) Bah!!!!! Looks like we have to wait until the "JFK expose" style film comes out!!!!!!!!!

At least we now know why that wacky young man Mr Ballmer is in charge of MS now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome the olden days- of tha NetWeb!!!!

Well, as they say, a week in politics is a long time!!!!! Especially in dog years!!!!!!! But it's even longer in w3time!!!!!!!!! So it's great to see that some old Uni professor in US-land has kept all his old notes from uni courses dating back to 1996!!!!!! And as part of the notes, he saved some webby pages from of the big w3sites of tha day!!!!! And they're still there!!!!! They all date from 1996, which is just over twice the age of our venerable organ!!!!!!! So check out these webby siteys for a fast-forward trip backwards down the memory lane of the back of your mind!!!!!!

• Yahoo- looks like they haven't changed too much!!!!!!!
  
• Shareware.com
  
• Xing
  
• UPS- check out the radical design here!!!!
  
• Progressive Networks, who are offering some new fangled program by the name of "Real Audio player"!!!!!!!!
  
• Alta Vista
  
• And finally... Microsoft- wow, they were really ahead of their time, weren't they!!!!!!
  

Pop writers- in the pub!!!!!!!

Well, you might have wondered what pop writers do when they're not writing about pop music!!!!! Well, the universal answer appears to be... Down tha Pub!!!!!!!

Well, OK, this is in the UK, obviously!!!!!!!! In Europe they sit around cafes in the open air and talk about Neiztche or something!!!!!!! In the US, they hang out with some band backstage and snaffle all their drugs and groupies!!!!!!! But in the UK, it's tha pub!!!!!!!!!!!

Great huh?!??! Bet you wonder why they hardly ever write about such an exciting life instead of boring old tepid indie bollox!!!!!!!! However this lot do!!!!!!!!!

Yes, the team behind New York London Paris Munich (As recommended by that young chap Simon Reynolds, who reads a lot of books and stuff, which is no doubt why he keeps quiet about his sisters The Reynolds Girls, of "I'd rather Jack!!!!!! (Than Fleetwood Mac!!!!)" fame!!!!! Erm, where was I?!?!??!) Oh yes, the NYLPM bunch also do a rolling weblog about pubs in London!!!!! It's called "Pumpkin Publog", and check the size of the flipping archive!!!!!! It's been going as long as the Blogger versh of this very organ wot you are looking at!!!!!!!!!!!! That's a lotta pub-time!!!!!!!

Today's "interesting" slogan!!!!

Life without industry is guilt; industry without art is brutality. [Well, that no doubt explains certain fast food places, but what about non-industrial jobs?!?! Are you saying basket-weavers are riddled with guilt?!?!?!??!?!]

Linux saves Microsoft?!?!??!?!?!

Don't you just love business heads getting the wrong end of the stick when it comes to non-Business issues?!?!??!?! The amusingly named Hal Plotkin comes to the surprising conclusion that if Linux starts seriously eating into the Windows market, then Microsft may turn around and do it's own version of Linux in direct competition!!!!!!

As, usual, there's loads of "Woe!!! The End is Nigh!!!!" and "mikkkro$oft suxxx!!!" type nonsense from Slashdot posters, most of whom seem to miss the very obvious question marks surrounding such a concept!!!!!

How exactly would Microsoft do their own versh of Linux??!?!?! Given that a lot of the code is GPLed or under some other sort of licence, they can't exactly make all of thier Linux distro proprietary, and if they can't do that, then there's nothing stopping people getting their software from places other than MS!!!!

If on the other hand, they used GPL'ed code for a micro-kernel, and then program their own proprietary Windows-compatible user interface around it, then all you've got left is another version of Windows with slightly different workings under the hood!!!!!!! Effectively it wouldn't be Linux any more- and why would people who were interested in Linux be necessarily interested in a new versh of Windows just because it's got a revamped Linux style microkernel?!?!?!? Microsoft might as well use Linux code in Windows rather than the other way round, and sell it to existing Windows users!!!!!!!

And according to rumours, this is exactly what's happening... And as the writer notes, the main problem with getting someone else's company to do your "R&D" work for you is that you're always behind them by at least one step!!!!!

Do graffiti - on tha NetWeb!!!!!!

Now of course, as you all know, scrawling graffiti on things is not big and not clever!!!!!! But here's one place it is!!!!! Sketchzilla!!!!!!!

Phrasebook- for "non-standard" English!!!!!

Well, if you want to learn English, don't whatever you do, check this site out!!!!!! That's because it's a webby version of an old phrase-book called "English as She is Spoke"!!!!!!!! Mind you, if need to learn English, you probably won't understand wot I just said!!!!!!

Anyway, for the rest of you folks- you might want to check this out!!!!! Within hours you'll be using such helpful phrases as "Cat scalded fear the cold water" and "Of the hand to mouth, one lose often the soup"!!!!!!! Tho, to find any reference to mobile phones in this tome is "To look for a needle in a hay bundle"!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday's Corny Rhyming quote

The ruling passion, be what it will/The ruling passion conquers reason still. [And, crap rhyming aside, was there a time when it never was thus?!??!/You complete and utter big cretinous ball of pus?!??!?!?!]

Frothing at the mouth- over a bloke called "Stan"!!!!!

Well, that was nice review wasn't it?!?!??!? At least it didn't read like:

Omnipresent by the time you read this, and still the finest track off his coruscating 'The Marshall Mathers LP' opus, over-familiarity cannot dull the mesmerising power of Eminem's dissection of the artist/fan interface. Right now, this is the definitive statement on the whole modern, post-Diana malaise of celeb culture

Crikey!!!!!!! They might be going all "Pop" these days, but NME can still do head-up-the-rectum prose with the best of them, as featured in this revoo of that rappy chappy Eminimeniemneimnimem's latest 7" gramophone!!!!!!!!!

Old Fart watches an old 80s band!!!!!!

U-no, it's been such a long time since I heard that funny DJ personage Tony Blackburn announce on the chart show on tha radiogram a "zzzeennnzzzational!!!!" new entry called "Planet Earth" by a new band called "Duhrrin-duhrrin"!!!!!!!!!! And about 10 minutes later, he announced that an inordinate amount of listeners had called up to inform him that the band was actually called Duran Duran!!!!!!! Well, on Sunday, I finally managed to see this fabled band!!!!!!! Only they're not as young as they used to be!!!!!!! And Simon Le Bon doesn't do that funny "new romantic" dance he did in that "Planet Earth" video!!!!!!!!! In fact, they didn't do "Planet Earth" at all!!!!!!!! And they've mysteriously mutated from a bunchy of synthy dudes in garish suits to a hugely efficient stadium rock band!!!!!!!!! Cripes!!!!!!!!

So it's just as well I went along with a few friends (Some of whom were old enough to remember tha Duran, and some who weren't!!!!! "Wow!!! I didn't know they did 'Save a Prayer'!!!!" Well, who did you think did it then?!?!?! Westlife?!?!?!?!) and got roaring drunk beforehand at some nice restaurant in the old Rotunda thingy on the side of the Clyde!!!!!!!!!!!! And just a short stagger up the road is the blatant Sydney Opera House rip-off of the Clyde Auditorium where our musical entertainment was going to take place!!!!

We didn't know who the support act were tho!!! "Begins with an E..." said one, "Begins with an A..." said another!!!!! "Maybe the people in the cloakrooms know who it is" said the folk at the merchandising stall!!!!!!! To be honest I had no interest of buying some crappy T-shirt, but if I had, I would have bought it outside, as the bootleggers t-shirts looked far preferable to the official stuffs, which were emblazoned with Durranies latest album title "POP TRASH", using what must be the cheapest looking logo ever used by a pop band!!!!!!! Whatever happened to the marvellous sense of design from ye olde "Rio" gramophone cover?!?!?!?!

Well, some people acted like they remembered ye olde Duran Days!!!!! Except of course they didn't!!!!!!! But it was most amusing to watch some of the younger folk trudging about in baggy shirts, bad wigs and Sharon 'n' Tracey make-up and baubles!!!!! One can imagine packing them into a TARDIS, sending them back to London in 1980, and then watch the amusing spectacle that results as they attempt to get past the door at Steve Strange's club!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem, where was I?!??!?! Anyway, after finding the bar- which was regimentally managed by some lady steward who told us where to queue, when to approach the bar, and then to keep at least "a couple of yards away" from the bar afterwards, we got a bit cheesed off, and started looking for our seats!!!!!! Luckily as we approached the "galleries", we found a nice quiet bar with no bossy crowd-controlling staff!!!!! In fact, there was no crowd!!!! Until we finally staggered into the hall that is!!!!!!!

We were so far up the galleries, that it was a bit like being a young whippersnapper at the panto again!!!!!! I found myself right next to the bloke who operates the spotlight!!!!!! That wasn't too annoying really- it was the bloke in other seat who incessantly clapped merrily during every song, like it was a bloody Simple Minds concert, who started getting on my wick!!!!!!!

Anyway!!!!! Whahey!!!! Here some the Durans, coming onstage to some old Elvis tune!!!!! Apparently this is some subtle in-joke in reference to one of their "newies" called "Hallucinating Elvis", which they play later, with ol' Simes Les Bons giving a jolly good impression of a broken down Elvis robot!!!!!!! And crikey, he is starting to show his age a little!!!!! Particularly given that he's decided to come on in some sleeveless shirt, presumably to show off how hard he's been working out at tha gym!!!!!!!!!!!! Mind you, he's also clearly also been giving his voicebox a little of the "keep-fit" treatment as well!!!!! No more straining to hit the high notes of "Wild Boys" for Mr Le Bon now!!!!!!! Welcome to the new leaner and fitter Duran Duran!!!!!!

Certainly as far as beefed-up proceedings go, that funny Caruzzo US guitar that wot plays for the 'Rans (!!!) now certainly seems to have given them a right royal rock 'n' roll kick up tha wotsits!!!!! The guitar bits of early Duran gramophones were always the weakest links anyway, particularly when they attempted to ape American rock stylee stuff!!!! Well, now they've got a real American rock dude, and they certainly use it!!! Particularly on their brave re-writing of Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel's "White Lines" rap platter as a Callifornian nu-metal rock stomp!!!!! (Wot a shame they don't play Public Enemy's "911 Is A Joke" any more!!!!!!!) And the old faves (Which make up around 66.667% of tonights set) benefit from a slightly more uptempo "rocky" feel, whilst still retaining Nick Rhodes banks of keyboard squiggles!!!!

I remember reading in some mag some bloke saying that the main difference between concerts by Pink Floyd and The Australian Pink Floyd was the money spent on the stage show!!!!!!! Well, Duran Duran don't appear to be quite that dead yet, but even if they do start to smell funny, at least they won't sound as bad as they smell!!!!!!!!!!!

Weekend nonsensical quote!!!!!!

No human being was ever so free as a a fish. [You wot!??!?!?! I take you've never worked in a trawler, then!!!!!]

Friday's little pearl of wisdom!!!!!

Knowledge advances by steps- not by leaps. [Just as well you said "steps" and not "Steps", or I would have asked you to step outside, young man!!!!!!!]

Be a smartypants- by drinking Laphroaig!!!!!!

U-no, sometimes there's nothing better than having a "wee dram"!!!!!!! By which I of course mean a small glass of whisky- not a close encounter with a certain farmyard animal, as you may think!!!!!!!!! But what I didn't know is that I might end up on Mastermind as a result of it!!!!!!!! (The drink, not the farmyard animal!!!!!!!!)

That's because some boffins have found out that occasional drinkers have higher IQs than teetotallers!!!!!!!!! Tho mind you, it might also have to do with the ridiculous names they give alcohol!!!!!!! I mean, if you know how to spell "Bunnahabhain", then you've got to have some braincells!!!!!!!

Sumo wresting: sailors with planetary names!!!!!!

Erm.... Something tells me that Sumo Wresting in Japan is starting to go a little towards the WWF end of things when some of them start dressing up as characters from anime show Sailor Moon!!!!!!!!

Clinton: If you inhale- you shouldn't go to jail!!!!!

Looks like the plan to put Bill Clinton in as Chancellor of Oxford Uni is stepping up a gear!!!!! He's obviously being nice to the Oxford folks he shared his non-inhalation experimentation episode with, by saying in an interview with dull-but-worthy rock tome Rolling Stone (Again, classic Oxford Uni demographics!!!!) that he does think people who smoke "special" cigarettes shouldn't be slammed into the clinker!!!!!! (By which we mean jail, not Bill's... Er hang on, cancel that thought!!!!!!! Bleeeuuurrrrghhh!!!!!!! Groooo!!!!! Etc. )

Today's rather inexplicable "pearl"!!!!!

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. [You wot?!?!?!?!?!?!?]

Yesterday's "Gee, I Didn't Think Of That" quote!!!!

To the puritan, all things are impure. [Spooky!!!!!]

Get down, Plutino!!!!!!

Well, after all that debate about whether or not Pluto is really a planet or not, (Much to Mickey Mouse's annoyance, no doubt!!!!!!) astronomers have now found a "plutino" inbetween Neptune and Pluto!!!!

This story helpfully tells us that the minor planetoid, snappily titled "2000 EB173" is "about one-fourth the size of Pluto (or about the distance from Boston to Buffalo)"!!!!!!!!!!!!

Erm... OK then!!!!! Thanks very much for that useful piece of info!!!!! Next time I travel from Buffalo to Boston, I'll be able to say "Aha!!!! This is roughly equal to the diameter of a planetoid between Neptune and Pluto!!!!!!!!!!" And I expect the Buffalo would have some pretty choice words on the matter as well!!!!!!!!

These automobiles are dead good- literally!!!!! (Almost!!!!!)

Cripes!!!!! I didn't know there was a major demand regarding car hire services for Hearses!!!!!!!!!!!! But I do now!!!!!!!! Check out this spiffy webby sitey called "Grim Rides"!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mind you, I don't think I'll be driving around in a Hearse that often!!!!!! I mean, imagine driving up to the ladies in old folks home in a Hearse and saying "Come on!!!!! Hop in!!!!!!"!!!!!!!

Things would turn rather nasty, I'd wager!!!!!

Now, that's wot I call a lot of piccies of a gas giant!!!!!

I bet you didn't know that now has never been a better time to look at the cloud structure of the biggest gas giant in the Solar System!!!!!!!!!! But it is!!!!!!! Some spiffy space probe thingy called CICLOPS has parked outside Jupiter and is taking some jolly nice holiday snaps of the big blobby planet!!!!!

Xmas Tree- for couch potatoes!!!!!!!

Well, as they say, "Only In America etc."!!!!!!!! It's nice to see someone's merged two great American traditions: Christmas, and sitting on the couch in front of tha tellybox like a complete parsnip!!!!!!! Check this one out- a Christmas tree... Made from a couch!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mind you, I think it might be a bit harder putting the presents underneath the Xmas Couch!!!!!!! Especially if some lardy-bottomed person flops out on tha seat!!!!!! Unless of course the presents are really thin already!!!!! Maybe I should email the folks on this w3site and tell them to get each other "Big Brother- the book" as presents this year!!!!!!!

Curse of Select claims... Select!!!!!!

Hum... I reckon missed this one on Friday, because it has "Select" in the headline!!!!!!!! Anyway!!!! It looks like after we slagged off Select, the not-very-good "music/lifestyle" monthly, it looks the EMAP Chaps have independently come to a similar conclusion!!!!!! And they've shut it down!!!!!!!!

They give some extremely spurious reasoning for it shutting down as well:

Market conditions mean that the indie sector, which Select emphatically championed, has been completely absorbed into the mainstream, illustrated by the huge success of the magazine's core bands - Oasis, Blur and Radiohead.

Eh?!??! So, if the bands they champion are so flippin' popular, how come they're selling so little?!?!??!?! Could it possibly be that the mag's not very good?!?!?!?! And all this guffola to the effect that Select "helped create the mid-90s Britpop boom"!!!!!!! (Funny, I though the word in question was invented by Melody Maker!!!) This is supposedly due to the 1993 front cover with Suede on the front cover (Again, I seem to remember Melody Maker beat them on that score as well!!!!) and the laughable headline "Yanks go home!"!!!!!! Yes, well, look how well Suede did on that front!!!!!!!! They were upstaged on their US tour by their own flipping support band!!!!!!!! That would be bad enough, but their support band was The Cranberries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (!!!!!!!!!!)

Mind you, there's an interesting mention of the fact that the indie weeklies have been declining while the likes of Kerrang! and Mixmag have been doing rather well!!!!! Which would no doubt explain why the formerly "indie anorack" NME is going all "pop", and why the once mighty Melody Maker has suddenly plummeted downhill in a desperate attempt become a tabloidy "Kerrang!" Jnr!!!!!!!!!!

Clinton's next job- in a gown!??!?!?!?

Well, I never!!!!!! Looks like some folks want Bill Clinton back at Oxford University (For US readers- that's the place where he didn't inhale!!!!!! Which sounds like a bit of a waste of time if you ask me!!!!!!!! I mean, if you really have set your mind on smoking one of those funny "French" cigarettes, then it seems a bit redundant to only appear to smoke it!!!!! I mean, it ill behoves a potential leader of the Free World to say one thing then do another, doesn't??!?!??!! Erm, hang on!!!!! I think I may have spotted a huge flaw in my argument there!!!!!!)

Wait a sec!!!! Where was I?!?!?!? Oh yes, anyway, apparently there's some campaign or another to get Clinton to become Chancellor of the ancient university!!!!!!!!!! Well, he would certainly shake up the stuffy place I'd reckon!!!!!!! Especially the "after dinner" practice of smoking cigars!!!!!!!!!

Inflight reading material- for maniacs!!!!!

Hello peeps!!!! Are you about to jump on an aeroplane!??!?!?! Well, not literally obviously!!!!!! Unless you were Evil Kineval or something!!!!!!! No, you would probably just go inside and sit down down on tha seat, just like most normal people!!!!!!!

Well, however you do it, don't read this w3site!!!!!! It's called AirDisaster.com!!!!!!!!!!! And according to "Today in History":

5 years ago today, on December 5, 1995, an Azerbaijan Airlines Tupolev TU-134B crashed shortly after takeoff from Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan, Russia. 44 of the 82 passengers and crew aboard were killed.

Well, that's nice to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wax Cylinders... On MP3s!!!!!

Blimey!!!!! Here's another brilliant prediction from the olden days of the very organ wot you are reading!!!!!!!!

As predicted in a really old issue of SC, here's some MP3s- of old wax cylinders from the dawn of recorded music!!!!!!!!!! Mind you, I don't see any from my massive collection yet!!!!!!! Sort out your priorities, folks!!!!!!!

Cryptography- with Grannies!!!!!!!!

OK, here's someone in the US suggesting that wot with the FBI promoting their "Big Brother" thingy "Carnivore" with all the subtelty of a rhinoceros horn up the backside, that the market is ripe for email clients with cryptography as standard so that everyone and their "grannies" use them!!!!!!

Well, that's all very well, but here in the UK, apparently we're not allowed to encrypt our own messages like a grown up!!!!! If PC Plod comes around, we're supposed to give him our decrypt codes or go to jail pronto!!!!!! Sounds like a European Human Rights case looming if you ask me!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Wazzup"- with Grannies!!!!!!!!!!!

If there's anything more irritating than that bloody annoying "Wazzup" advert for some piss-weak gassy barely alcoholic beverage, it's the way that the entire flipping UK media has been going crazy over that bloody annoying "Wazzup" advert for some piss-weak gassy barely alcoholic beverage!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mind you, in the US, there's already been a bizzare "parody" of the ad featuring a load of old grannies!!!!!! And wots even more bizzare is that some people have been spreading this about tha NetWeb in the UK thinking it's an actual geniune advert and not a really obvious piddle-extraction enterprise!!!!!!!!!!!

Still, better a piddle-extraction enterprise than a tooth-extraction enterprise, which is what the actual geniune adverts are more akin to!!!!! Bah!!!!!!!!

Today's rather obvious quote!!!!!!!

Fame and tranqulity can never be bedfellows. [Unless of course you're Neil Sedaka!!!!!!]

You need knowledge... About Knowledge!!!!!!!

Interesting stat for you folks now!!!!! At most, no more than 75% of the webby pages I troll each day actually make it into Senior Citizen because of time commitments and stuff like that!!!!! In fact, sometimes on slow days, I often report on pages I trolled at least a couple of days ago!!!!!!!

But wot I did not know is that apparently I am practicising a rudimentary form of information technology selection techniques in order to acheive things such as: "filtering information overload, effective reading, note-taking, analysis, synthesis and communicating effectively to others"!!!!!!!!!

Yes, there's some jolly new "management technique" technique called Knowledge Management, which is now also being developed for individual peeps like us in order to avoid "information overload" and gain "the skills or tools to keep up in the Knowledge Age" and other similar stuffs!!!!!!

Here's one hot tip from the article: apparently it's a good idea to be "eating well and getting enough sleep"!!!!!!!!!!! So, if your boss catches you asleep on the job (By which we mean your workplace!!!!!! And not "laying a cable" in the "lavvy", as some people might think!!!!!! Tho mind you, if your boss turns up in the "little room" and tries the latter, one could be perfectly justified in protecting one's modesty using the technique of blindfolding" one's employer- by chucking used toilet paper at him!!!!!!!) Ahem, anyway!!!! If he catches you asleep, you can explain to him that you were merely improving your Knowledge Management techniques- and then demand that he takes you to a good restaurant so you can "eat well"!!!!!!!!!

Microsoft: No to tha NetWeb!!!!!!!

Hmmmm.... This seems a bit strange!!!!!!! Those cheeky chaps from Redmond (Microsoft!!!!!!!!) have put some online form that gauges how much your software is "risky"!!!!!! Apparently if you have loads of MS software with all the licenses, you're at a low risk!!!!!! But if you say on the questionnaire (which is IE compatible only, for some extraordinary reason!!!!!) that you download any software from tha NetWeb, suddenly you're in a "high risk" situation!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm.... I wonder if this has anything to do with the appearance of a new Outlook Express email worm, which slags off users for using Windows, and suggests they use Linux instead!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dennis the Menace to Harry Potter: "BIFF!!!! Take that, you Walter look-a-like!!!!!!!

Cripes!!!!! It's look like veteran kiddies komic The Beano isn't just wowing them over in Japan!!!!!! It looks as thought it's doing the busines over here as well!!!!!! Advance orders for the Beano 2001 Annual this Xmas have knocked the near-mythical Harry Potter off the best-seller lists!!!!!!! "You can always trust the Beano gang to make a menace of themselves" said some bloke.

Revealed: Glasgow's Undergound "Sexy Pigeons" Pimping Secret!!!!!!

Now here's a vaguely interesting story for all you pigeon racers!!!!!!! Apparently some male pigeons are real "Ladies Men"!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And apparently some pigeon racing folk in my local area of Glasgow are using these avian "Peter Stringfellows" to "nab" lady pidgeons from their rivals!!!!!!!!!! And it's often ending in kneecappings!!!!!!

Even more bizarrely, these "pigeon pimps" are known as "horsemen"!!!!!!!!! Just as well they don't breed poultry!!!!!! Who knows, maybe they would have been called "donkey bangers" or something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Senior Citizen predicts possible US economic downturn!!!!!!!!

Crikey!!!!!! It's been a bit of a dramatic time recently for tech stocks and e-business!!!!!!! Not only has there been loads of UK dotcoms (Usually run by loadsa young thrusting types who thought they were the business equivalent of "rock stars" or something!!!!!!!) falling by the wayside, but the tech industry in general has been seeing something of a big of a downturn, with a lot of people saying that it might be because the PC home market has reached saturation point!!!!!!!!! And it's even got through to this columnist bloke from The Scotsman by the name of Bill Jamieson, who is taking a break from recycling his "The European Parliament is Satan!!!!!!!" article every flipping week, to cover these events, noting that the high heid yin of Big Blue (By which we mean of course IBM, and not an "adult" video mail-order company as you may think!!!!!!) proclaimed that the PC is dead!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which is jolly interesting, as we predicted something similar in an old issue of SC in September 1998!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps Bill Jamieson ought to be reading us instead of "Smarmy Right-Wing Think-Tank Monthly", or whatever it is he reads!!!!!!!!!!!

Wot happens if MacDonalds stages an "October Revolution"!??!?!?!?

Apparently Scotland now has a Fat Tsar!!!!!!!!!!! (Or "Fat Czar" according to whom you are reading!!!!!!!!!!)

Nope!!!!! We're not talking about a portly relative of the Romanovs usurping the Windsors as Scotland's Head of State!!!!!!!!!!! In fact, we are talking about a new "FatFinder General" type Government bloke who is looking to launch a big campaign aimed at helping improve the general diet of Scots!!!!!!!!

For some reason, The Scotsman seems to find all of this a bit of a jolly hoot!!!!!!!

Cloning: "Tis the season to be weary, tra-la la-l . . . "!!!!!!!!

Erm!!!!! Something tells me the titles got a bit mixed up in today's Glasgow Herald Leaders Page!!!!!!!!!

Bizzarre Monday Slogan!!!!!!!

I like work. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. [?!?!?!??!?!?!?]

Weekend state-the-bleeding obvious slogan!!!!!

The object of oratory is not truth but persuation. [No!!!! Really?!?!??! And here's me thinking those US presidential debates showed the candidates as they really are!!!!!!!!!!]

Logarithmic Witchcraft!!!!!!

Logarithms!!!!!!! I bet that very word has struck fear into your very hearts!!!!!! Horrible images of sitting in a classroom with a slide-rule and/or abacus when you were a whippersnapper!!!!!!! Well, actually, I used one of those new fangled pocket calculating machines!!!!!!! Mind you, it was in the olden days when calculators were the size of cash registers, and I had very big pockets!!!!!!!!

Erm, well, anyway!!!!!!! If you ever want to know who's name to curse for this, the name is John Napier, a dude from 16th century Scotland!!!!!! And apparently, he wasn't just into maths!!!!!! Apparently he was regarded by the locals as a bit of a "warlock" as well!!!!!! Mind you, this was probably after they tried to solve some tough logarithmic equations!!!!!!!!!!

Senior Citizen- on a Billy Joel song!!!!!!

Blimey!!!!!!! SC has got a mention on a popular music gramophone!!!!!! Well, actually, it's a "remake" of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire", which of course was a remake of REM's "The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", which of course was a rremake of Bob Dylan's "Subterranian Homesick Blues", which of course was a remake of Tommy Steele's "Half a Sixpence"!!!!!!! Actually, I just made that last bit up, believe it or not!!!!!!!

Er, where was I!?!??!?! Anyway!!! Some enterprising peeps have remade the Billy Joel song calling it "We Didn't Start the Weblog"!!!!!! And guess wot!!!! It's all about weblogs!!!! And it gives us a mention!!!!! Which is nice!!!!!

You can even get an mp3 of the "platter" in question here!!!!! Tho I have to say I feel sorry for the poor guy who had to sing it all!!!!! He sounds like he's got the same cold as I had this week!!!!!

Welcome to the (slightly) new-look SENIOR CITIZEN!!!!!

Aha!!!! I expect you notice the difference now!!!!! Welcome to the revamp of SC, with more space for text, and an better layout!!!! And watch out for some more additions in the next few weeks!!!!

Now we're coming up for Chrimbo, (!!!!) I'll be starting to get ready for the Senior Citizen 2000 NetBest Awards!!!!!! In it, I plan to award the:

• Best Headline!!!!!!
  
• Best Story!!!!!!
  
• Best Rant!!!!!!
  
• Best Website!!!!!!
  
• Best Software!!!!!!
  
• Best Prediction!!!!!!
  

And maybe others!!!!!!!! If you have any suggestions, mail us!!!!!!!

Fridays brilliant quote!!!!

Old age is preferable to the alternative. [Damn right, old chap!!!!!!]

Time for the "tele-village"!!!!!!!!

Teleworkers will be based either in their own homes or in office suites at the centre of the settlement where they can share expensive hardware including scanners, laser printers, photocopiers and video-conferencing facilities. All the homes and facilities will be linked up by computer networks so they can communicate with each other.

Yet residents will enter this wired-up village through a tree-lined and cobbled main street designed for pedestrians and bicycles where children will be safe to play in front of their homes.

Sounds like some dreadful US "suburb" somewhere, doesn't it?!?!?!? And if you think so, you'd be completely wrong!!!!!!!! It's actually Scotland's first "tele-village", which is somewhere in the Borders, apparently!!!!!!!!!

BTW "Tele-village".... Doesn't that sound like a more urban form of Teletubbyland!??!?!??!

Watch out Bert and Nappy- here comes a Spy!!!!!!!!

Blimey!!!!!!! Here comes yet another "home-brew" Napster clone!!!!!!! This one's called Songspy, which is jolly ironic as I expect certain Record Industry peeps will be doing a lot of "spying" on this lot!!!!!!!!!

This years best album- is connected to your compute with a ribbon cable!!!!!!!

Hmmmm, I'm not too sure how to react to this one!!!!!!! Apparently ultra-cool-and-hip US music mag Spin, which is usually the sort of rag I would avoid even if I had procured a suitably large barge-pole (!!!!!!), has announced the "Album of the Year" as "Your Hard Drive", in recognition of the vast amounts of MP3s that people have on them these days!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I would certainly agree in my case!!!!!!! But having seen some peoples music collections on Napster/Gnutella/Freenet/PloppyTrader, I wouldn't say this is universally true!!!!!!!

A rather basic way- to do BASIC!!!!!!! (Doh!!!!!!!)

U-no, one of my friends has got one of those new-fangled Playstation 2 thingies!!!!!!!!! And the thing that's been most played on it so far has not been any game, but this version of ye olde computing language BASIC, called YABASIC!!!!!!!! You can download it for Windows and *nix, but it's much more entertaining watching someone programming it using just an analogue controller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today's rather downbeat quote!!!!!!

Ask yourself whether you're happy- and you cease to be so. [Excuse me while I go and slit my wrists!!!!!! Actually, I won't!!!!!!! I'm only joking, really!!!!!!!!!]

Another eddytorial!!!!!

Cough!!! Cough!!!! Sniffle!!!! etc. Yes, I've still got the cold!!!!! In fact, I was in bed yesterday!!!!!!!! But I managed to drag myself out for long enough to finish off the new look for Senior Citizen!!!!!! It's not really that different to the old look, but it's much clearer, and has more space for text!!!!! It should go live this weekend!!!!!! Bet you can't wait, huh!!!!!!!

BTW I'll be taking part in this Day Without Weblogs tomorrow, so there'll be no SC on 1st Dec. But we'll return the next day in our new look!!!!

Yesterday's not-very-good slogan!!!!!!

Custom is the great guide of human life. [Yeah, like flippin' Witch Trials- wot a great guide to life that must be!!!!!!]

Sharon Stone: scarred for life?!?!??!

Here's one "Scarface" that's generating heaps of interest: the one on Sharon Stone's neck!!!!!!! Never mind the face on Mars, some peeps are constructing conspiracy theories around a strange mark on some movie star who's more known for a certain other part of her anatomy!!!!!! Mind you, having seen that "Basic Instinct" on tha tellybox the other day, I can inform you that it's nothing to write home about.

ICANN: no you can't!!!!!!

Reporting on this story is apparently a little muted!!!!!!!!! There's a bit of a major stushie between the bods wot make the top level domain names, ICANN, and ... well, everyone else!!!!!!! In fact, there's even talk of outside agencies using their own root servers!!!!!!!!

There's some other bloke reporting on the story here, but he uses funny words, and I don't understand them!!!!!!! Bah!!!!!!!

Designers: Acne!!!!!

Hey!!!! There's some groovy Swedish design "collective" called "Acne"!!!!!!! Bet they have quite a few "spots" on tha NetWeb!!!!!! (Doh!!!!!!)

PS!!! We've just found out that they've got some connection with our old friend, the C64 sound-a-like SidStation!!!!!

If you're a housewife- you're dead!!!!!!

Crikey!!!!! These are changing times!!!! Not only is Deputy PM John Prescott getting a right earful off the French Minister Dominique Voynet for having a "standard macho attitude", but there's also a new survey out which proclaims the idea of the "traditional" stay-at-home housewife to be "all but extinct"!!!!!! Also, there appears to be a more "permissive" amongst young people as compared to older folks!!!!!!

Come on, you senior citizens!!!! Time to catch up with the young folk!!!!!! There are even classes for it these days!!!!!

Old folk: we're not Victor Meldrew!!!!!

Well, at least some of us oldies aren't all stick-in-the-muds!!!!!!!!!! According to yet another new survey, the more mature adults are getting steadily cheesed off with being assumptions that they either watch "Songs of Praise", or act like Victor Meldrew!!!!!!!

A viewer in her 60s said of her movie preferences: "I like a good violent American thriller - the type of thing with Al Pacino."

Another, in his 70s, said: "People our age like the same range of things as anybody else. We don't suddenly find that all we want to watch is Songs of Praise. We like the same things we liked when we were younger. I like The Royle Family and Have I Got News For You, just like my grandson."

Oldies watching "Scarface"?!?!?! About flipping time, I say!!!!!!!!

Stop death on air flights- by wearing elasticated stockings!!!!!!!

Well, here's an old man who certainly knows where it's at!!!!!!!! Wot with all this talk about seats in cramped cheapo air flights causing deadly blood clots and whatnot, here's an old 85 year old bloke called JC Mustarde, with some sage advice on how to beat the problem!!!!!!!!! Apparently it involves certain "exercises" and wearing elasticated stockings!!!!!!!

In the years to come I made many long-haul flights, always wearing my stockings and doing my unobtrusive pumping exercises, with no recurrence of my problem. And now, in my 85th year, I am coming to the end of a commitment which in the past nine years has involved making some 40 trips to Ghana and back (the International Reconstructive Plastic Surgery Project)

Crikey!!!! Plastic surgery as well!??!?!?! I think Master Mustarde has a lot to teach other old (and even young) folks!!!!!

Yesterday's tautologist slogan!!!!!

Yes, I was busy yesterday!!!!!!!!

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle. [Unfortunately, on Planet Earth, one usually follows from the other!!!!!!]

Old Fart has got the cold!!!!!!!

Cough!!!! Cough!!!! Sniffle!!!! Atchoo!!!!!!! This is one of the more annoying disadvantages regarding the more mature man having a hectic lovelife!!!!!!!! You might get a lot of funny bugs!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW Talking of "Planet Earth", I might soon be going to a concert held by ancient electro-fogies Duran Duran!!!!!!! If so, expect a "unique" review by yours truly soon afterwards!!!!!!

Todays old chesnut!!!!!

"Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country."

Voting trends: dog owners vs tortoise owners!!!!!!!!

I bet the proportion of dog-owners who vote Conservative is significantly higher than, say, of people who own a tortoise.

This is a most interesting article!!!!!!!!!!!! I can see that young Tory chap William Hague jumping on the "Dog Owners" bandwagon now!!!!!!!!!! You can imagine him talking to that "Loaded" maggy in his Yorkshire-accent-with-jaws-wired-together type voice: "Oh well, I think dogs are really great pets, much better than those liberal politically correct metropolitan wine-bar frequenting tortoises!!!!!!!!"!!!!!!!!!!!

Message to shoppers: "OI!!!! NOOO!!!!!!!"

Have you ever wanted to make a sizeable statement of intent regarding the questionable effects of the sizeable power of consumerist culture!??!?!??!?! Well, now you can- by failing to go to tha shop tomorrow!!!!!!!!

Yes, apparently tomorrow (Nov 24) is International Buty Nothing Day!!!!!!!!! So perhaps you can forgo the light lunch at some fast food joint for a delightful packed-lunch excursion in the park or something!!!!

It's the Ferry Man again!!!!!!

Call me daft, but as urban constituencies go there is a bright, open beauty about Glasgow Anniesland.

Seen from Renfrew ferry, it's a rising blend of tenement, tower block, crane and warehouse, soaring and rolling back to the Kilpatrick Hills. Seen from Jordanhill, it's a tapestry of the endeavours of sincere men, through decades, in wisdom and folly, to house the deserving poor.

Crikey!!!!! John MacLeod, that funny little man from the Western Isles wot writes for the Glasgow Herald, is asked to do a "perspective" on a by-election, and he has to stick another flipping reference to the Renfrew Ferry he seems to like so much!!!!!!!!

OK, John, since you suggested it, we will call you daft- daft on West Glasgow Clyde-based boyant vehicular crossing transport, that is!!!!!!!

Become a journo- and snap your pencil!!!!!

There's a by-election in Glasgow Anniesland today!!!!!!! But apparently the election campaign was really boring!!!!!!!!! But that didn't stop reporters getting a little carried away!!!!!!

When Brian Wilson chaired Labour's second and final press conference, he talked of how his party's candidates had gone directly to the people, campaigned on the doorsteps and generally put themselves about.

Reporters' pencils snapped in disbelief, and when Mr Wilson proceeded to express regret at the "retreat" into fashionable telephone canvassing, some of us watched anxiously to see if we might be injured by the falling ceiling.

Crikey!!!!!! Snapping pencils!!!!! And parnoid visions of unstable architecture!!!!!! And this is just a "boring" by-election!!!!!!!!!!!!

These reporters must be really highly strung!!!!!!!! Maybe they should take a mug of Horlicks and have a lie down or something!!!!!!

Today's rather pointless quote!!!!

Wit is an educated insult. [In which case, you must be a real "wit" to other peoples intelligence, you silly (t)wit!!!!!!]

How to do an artwork: drop dead!!!!!!!

Have you ever wondered how to make people remember you when you pop your clogs??!?!?! Well, perhaps you can put something on the wall from you for people in future generations to look at!!!!!!!!!!!

No, I am not talking about committing suicide by blowing off your head with a double-barrelled shotgun, having previously written a will stipulating that a certain wall in the house will never be cleaned!!!!!!!! I am in fact talking about this bunch called Eternally Yours, who take "a small portion of cremains" (?!?!?) and make a painting out of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bet that'll be a lot of fun in the future, when everyone is supposed to have tons of nanobots inside them!!!!!!! Wot if there's a bunch of nanobots left in the remains and they disagree with the artists design concept?!??!?! Will they "nanobotize" tha painting, and turn it into a Picasso stylee piccy just to annoy him/her?!?!?!??!

He/She would be pretty "cheesed off", I imagine!!!!!!!!! But I expect the nanobots would be falling on the floor laughing!!!!!!!!! If they're actually on the floor of course!!!!!!! But they're probably not!!!!!! They're probably on the painting!!!!! Because they've "nanobotized" the... OK, I'll shut up now!!!!!!

Flash Hack- literally!!!!!!!

Well, some hacks of websites have been getting a bit off the "h3LL0 3l33t3 ha>%<orz!!!1!" type nonsense recently, and actually started to express the odd opinion!!!!!!!! But here's a new one!!!!!!! A hacked site message- done in Flash!!!!!!!!!!!! Will wonders never cease!!!!!!!

Today's extremely ill-judged aphorism!!!!

Scenery is fine, but human nature is finer. [Oh really?!?!?! Well, dunno about you, but given the choice between a little trip through the Scottish Highlands and going on a Nuremburg Rally with Adolf Hitler, I think I know what most sane people would choose!!!!!!]

Time for another spiffy editorial!!!!!!

Hey!!!!! Have you noticed the slight change!??!?!?! The quotes all have different coloured headlines!!!!!

So bloody wot you might say!!!!! But this is merely the first step in the soon-coming design revamp!!!!!!! I've seperated the format of the headlines for the quotes and stories, and moved the location of the stylesheet URL!!!!! It's a bit like the webby equivalent of moving the Kingston Bridge three inches to the South!!!!! As for the revamp, I can promise... Well, I can't promise anything, really!!!!! I haven't finished the design yet!!!!!!! Bah!!!!!!!

Bush "looks like a chimp"!!!!!!!!

While this big bunfight over who's going to be El Presidente de la US is still going on, here's an interesting page about the bloke who is (currently) ahead!!!!!!!!!! Apparently there's a good reason George W Bush thinks it's "not Reaganesque to support a tax plan that is Clinton in nature" and wants to have a "foreign-handed foreign policy", and other funny things!!!!!!!!!! He looks like a chimpanzee!!!!!!!!!!

Robot car- with an outside airbag!!!!!!

Well, at least Victor Meldrew kicked the bucket with a little dignity last night!!!!!! But future generations might find his getting mown down by a car a little implausible!!!!!!!! At least, according to this jolly little article on automobile vehicular techhy thingies!!!!!!!!!

SensorCar uses crash sensors to minimize the results of a crash, pre-tightening seat belts just before the impact is felt by the passengers, and even triggering an external airbag that might lessen the blow to a pedestrian!

Only prob with that!!!!! If there's a massive external airbag blowing up around the car to protect pedestrians, it might look to the pedestrian like they're being attacked by one of those balloon thingies from The Prisoner!!!!!!!! The fright would probably kill them!!!!!!!!!

Jump off a cliff- and light a cigarette!!!!!!!

Well, I never!!!!!!!! According to some survey, apparently sensation seekers are more likely to take up smoking!!!!!!!!!

So next time you hear some bungee jumper say they do it because it makes them feel more "alive", you can always say "Ho ho!!!!! We'll see about that, won't we!!!!!!!!!!!!!"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Todays "modest" cheesy slogan!!!!!

Some modest men have a lot to be modest about. [And some don't!!!!! So what was the point of this cheesy slogan then?!??!?!? Apart from some half-baked attempt at being "humourous"?!?!?!?! Pah!!!!!!]

Wots on... Everywhere!!!!!

Crikey!!!!! Those sniffy listings mags like Time Out, who act like they're really cosmopolitan, had better watch out!!!!!!!!! Here's What's Going On, a website devoted to covering what to do- anywhere in the world!!!!!!!! According to today's edition, there's a "Monarch Butterfly Migration" happening in Angangueo, Michoacan, Mexico, and a "Wind Symphony Concert" happening in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA!!!!!!!!!!! Well, that's all from me today, I've got to jump on a plane now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Now pupils, turn to page 14 of your Beano"!!!!!!!

Now this is vaguely interesting!!!!!!! Whilst the Western world is having a bit of a "crush" on Manga/Anime and Pokemon, young people in Japan are getting into a dainty little Scottish-based comic!!!!!!!!!! Yes, it's the Beano, the Dundee kiddies comic, which even I subscribed to when I was a young man!!!!!!! And Dennis the Menace is still as fresh-faced as he was all those years ago!!!!!!!! He must be the Cliff Richard of comicbook cartoons!!!!!!!! Ahem anyway!!!! Young people in Japan are now using this evergreen fountain of kiddie comic youth as an aid to teaching English!!!!!!!! Which might mean a whole new generation of Japanese shouting words like "Crikey!!!!" and "Eeek!!!!"!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's an "advanced mechanical biped" - called Henry Honda!!!!!!

Here's yet another "Tommorow's World" style story on the latest emerging robot technologies in the Far East!!!!!! Apparently Henry Honda (Or Hyndland Honda, as we call him around these parts!!!!!) has made an "advanced mechanical biped"!!!!!!!!

Mind you, I don't know about NEC's idea of an "egg-shaped" thingy "which rolls around the house looking for faces it can recognize and talk to"!!!!! Wot if it rolls into the kitchen?!??!?!? Won't someone just pick it up, crack it open, and fry it or something?!??!?!??!?!?!

A new dimension in displays!!!!!! (Doh!!!!!!!!!!)

Next time you happen to chance upon that "Weakest Link" quiz show programme on tha tellybox and shiver as you see the schoolma'am-ish Anne Robinson say "You are the weakest link- goodbye!!!!!!!!!!", well, perhaps you might want to stop viewing telly altogether!!!!!! In future she might be lunging out of your tellybox- in 3D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, at least she would be if tha tellybox uses this "volumetric 3D display", anyway!!!!!!!!!!!! Arg!!!!!!!!! Some things are definately better in 2D!!!!!!!

Style & Content- it's like Morecame & Wise!!!!!

Some bloke here has found out what most of us who have been unfortunate to hear a Stereophonics gramophone already know- completely separating style from content is a load of rubbish!!!!!! He has a point you know!!!!!!!!! After all, what would the content of my page be like without my unique style of writing?!??!?!?!

Let's talk about... The Grand Old Duke of York!!!!!

Looks like the Glasgow Herald's getting a bit "lairy" about the current US election kerfuffle, to the point of increasingly obsfucatory journalistic practices in it's Editorial Leader column- mainly concerning a flippin nursey rhyme!!!!!!!!!!!

The road to the White House is rapidly coming to resemble the Grand Old Duke of York's preposterous nursery odyssey.

Dunno about you, but I think that the aforementioned nobleman would be assured of completing said preposterous nursery odyssey numerous times in rapid succession as the scribes of this venerable ancient Scottish broadsheet publication push their loquacity to excessive extremes in order to complete the task of rendering any opinions expressed flipping well unreadable!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're living in a bubble- literally!!!!! (Almost!!!!!)

Have you ever looked up at the sky and saw the stars!?!?!??!! Well, if you did, it must be at night!!!!!!! It would pretty dim to look for stars during the day wouldn't it!!!!!!!! In fact, the stars would themselves be pretty dim themselves in comparision to the nearby local star!!!!! By which I course mean the Sun, not Zeta Reticuli Beta, as you may think!!!!!!!!!!!! Erm, where was I?!?!?!?!? OK, if you look up at the sky at night, you'll see the stars!!!!! Well, unless it's cloudy of course!!!!!!!! Or you live in some city, where they use tons of crappy orange streetlights!!!!!!!!! Or you live in a cave!!!!!!!!! Unless of course they have glo-worms in this cave, which will provide an appreciable approximation of a starry night, but is unfortunately completely irrelevant to this story!!!!!! Arrrghhh!!!!!! I've gone off tangent again!!!!! (Wot, a wacky off-the-wall person I must be!!!!!!!!!!) Anyway, if you look up at the sky on a nice clear night and see the stars twinkling back at you, what you might not know is that this idyllic scene has a vague connection to a Radox bubble bath!!!!!!!! That's because the region of the Milky Way we live in (By which we course mean our local galaxy, not the chocolate bar!!!!!! And by Galaxy, we of course mean a huge collection of revolving stellar matter, not the chocolate bar... Oh no!!!! We're off on a tangent again!!!!!!!!!) Anyway, the flipping area of space we're in is called The Local Bubble!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that's not all!!!! The really local neighbourhood bit of the "Bubble" where we live is called the Local Fluff!!!!!!

Let's talk about death!!!!

U-no, there seems to be a whole bunch of tellybox characters dropping like flies these days!!!!!!! Tonight, it's the turn of Victor Meldrew, and last week it was ancient tec Inspector Morse!!!!!!!! Now, call me a bit "insensitive", but wasn't that death scene a bit crap?!??!! It looked like something out of a Doctor Who episode!!!!!!!! I hope when Mr Meldrew gets hit by that car tonight he flies over the bonnet a bit more gracefully!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today's "dull" quote!!!!!!!!

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor. [Unlike not-so-dull men like myself!!!!!!!]

Jump Jet vs Hens!!!!!!!

I bet when you last saw a Vertical Take Off and Landing military aircraft, that you never guessed that it might strike fear into the hearts of your average farmyard fowl!!!!!!!!!!! Well, I know I didn't, anyway!!!!!! But apparently, there is a "hen harrier", according to this story anyway!!!!!!!

Why don't the hens just lay an egg in the engines, I say!!!!!! That would gum them up pretty quick!!!!!!!!

Play tha videogram- from your gramophone!!!!!!!

U-no, unlike some young whippersnappers I still have a vinyl gramophone!!!!!!!! But what I did not know is that you can use it for video!!!!!!!!!! Well, OK, I did really, actually!!!!!! I mean, being Scottish, I know a little about John Logie Baird (Who is not related to Yogie Bear, as you might think!!!!!!) inventing a video recording system based on this very principle!!!!!!!!! So in fact, I'm talking complete and utter rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!

Errrr, where was I?!?!?!? Oh yes, some folks called Vinyl Video have ripped Logie Baird's idea off- in a very nice way of course!!!!!!

Kill a zombie- by nodding!!!!!!!

Oi!!!!! You!!!!!!!!! Stop playing about with your joystick, and pay attention!!!!!!!!! By which I of course mean your games controller as used in consoles or computer games, not some other thing!!!!!!!!! Mind you, I wouldn't want you to do that either!!!!!!!! I mean, this is supposed stimulation for the intellect, not the other part of the boddy!!!!!! If that were the case, I'd advise you to keep away from the Stephen Hawking books!!!!!!! You might go blind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem, anyway!!!!!!! Here's an article about a "head movement" detector, from the really imaginatively named "Cybernet Systems", which can be used as a games controller!!!!!!!!

Just don't try playing "Daley Thomson's Decathalon" with it tho!!!!!!!!! You might end up with brain damage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!